The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is stepping up support for the Serbian information technology (IT) industry by backing HTEC Group (HTEC), a Serbia-founded and United States of America-based engineering services and digital product development company.
A €55 million loan will support HTEC’s further expansion and internationalisation of operations through strategic acquisitions. The company will also invest in strengthening its services and expertise across all domains, including in FinTech. The move follows the acquisitions that took place in recent years, which the EBRD also supported, and which enabled HTEC to grow from 250 to more than 2,000 professionals.
Dirk Werner, EBRD Director, Telecommunications, Media and Technology, said: “We are excited to partner again with HTEC, a company that we recognised and supported when it was still at the beginning of its expansion phase. The EBRD helps local companies to become regional champions and we are extremely pleased that our support has helped HTEC to grow and become one of the leading IT firms in the region and a global player in the engineering services sector.”
The loan is the biggest EBRD financing to an IT sector company in the Western Balkans to date and is in line with the bank’s strategy to promote the growth of the technology sector and digitalisation in the region.
HTEC was founded in Serbia in 2008 and has grown into a global engineering services and digital product development company, with its headquarters in San Francisco, United States of America, with an expanding network of development centers across south-eastern Europe. It provides services to a number of international clients, ranging from blue chip companies to high-tech scale-ups in sectors such as retail, healthcare, transport, and logistics.
Miroslav Virijević, CFO of HTEC, said: “Our partnership with the EBRD for the past two years has helped us to implement our expansion strategy in the region. We are now present in 29 locations across seven countries with the aim of being the best company for the career development of engineering and other talents in this region. We are driven by the goal of solving the toughest engineering problems for our clients, thereby engaging our people in building globally competitive careers in this part of the world.”
The EBRD and HTEC first partnered in 2020 when the Bank extended a loan, co-financed by the Enterprise Expansion Fund (ENEF), to support HTEC’s acquisition of the Serbian IT company Execom.
The EBRD is a leading institutional investor in Serbia. The Bank has invested more than €7.5 billion in the country to date. Its focus in Serbia is on private-sector development, improving public utilities, and facilitating the country’s transition to a green economy.
Source: EBRD
